My life with a wonderful husband, living my vocation of raising three girls Catholic in a secular world, finding myself more counter-cultural and farther from the mainstream every day, and trying to grow in patience, knowing that they will not be little for long.

What we're listening to...

Monday, October 25, 2010

During E week, we went on a filed trip to the fire station with another homeschooling family. We used E for emergency and the fact that we would be on letter F the following week to tie it in. ;) They had a good program set up to teach children about fire safety and what to do in case of different fire emergencies.

Here is Caroline as she practices climbing out a window. This is a little room that has a low bed in it, and the kids take turns rolling out of the bed when a smoke detector goes off. Then they crawl across the floor to the window and climb out to safety. We made sure Caroline knew how to open her windows at home later, and I stressed that the window is the second choice - she should use the door if it is not hot.

The kids practiced staying low some more as they crawled through this tunnel of "smoke."

Trying on a fire fighter's coat

practicing stop, drop, and roll...

...and rinsing with cold water as soon as possible (pretend here, of course ;)

singing songs about fire safety... my girls are still singing their favorite, "Move to the right and stop - when the siren goes, "Woo woo woo," you move to the right and stop."

Caroline up close to a fireman in all his gear

Cecilia wasn't afraid of him, either... sometimes little kids are scared of them when they are wearing all that stuff, so they want to show kids that it is just a man inside a suit so they won't hide from them during a real fire!

Cecilia neded some help climbing through the truck...

Here are both families in front of the truck. Our town has yellow fire trucks - something about them being higher visibility that way or something? I heard that many, many years ago and forget the exact reason - I guess I should have asked!

The kids got some activity books and stickers, and they gave us a fire safety DVD too, because they had watched it at the beginning (without us - they seemed to have forgotten that there were two homeschooling families attending today along with two kindergarten classes from local schools, and they started the program early because the schools arrived early) - so it was nice of them to give us the DVD. We need to pass it on to our friends now, too!

My Lovely Family!

About Me

I spend my days as a 35 year old Catholic wife and mother changing diapers, nursing babies, teaching my children at home, making yogurt, picking figs, and fighting city hall for the rights of families to care for themselves in healthy and self-sufficient ways. I love my husband, chocolate, the Pope(s), Earl Greyer and Irish Breakfast teas, cooking, and the beauty and truth of my faith's teachings on family, sexuality, and love. My mottos are "Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life," "Ora et Labora," and "Offer it up." If you dropped by, you'd likely find me in my kitchen barefoot with a baby on my hip making dinner while rocking out to some Tonic or Emerson Hart.